First of all I would like to start this post by thanking many people. Thanks to Wolfgang and the organization team of the tournament, one more year they have run it masterfully and it has been incredible, it is not easy to always be at this level of excellence considering that every year there are more and more players.

Thanks to my colleagues from this expedition to Stahleck, to the Catalan Meta, and especially to the Old Watch, you are the best and without you all this would not have been possible. Thanks to my Spanish colleagues, it is a pleasure to see you every year in Zaragoza, Madrid and Stahleck. Thanks to Aioria and Ingrid for believing in me and giving me their support. Thanks to all the fellow players from Europe, USA and from all over the World who participated in the tournament, the AGOT community is the best I have ever seen and I am proud to be part of it.

Regarding the report of the games I'm afraid I will not be able to do much, after 11 games on Saturday and 3 on Sunday my brain is shattered . The Top 8 is recorded so you can see the matches if you are interested. I have to say that the games have been very competitive and very though and it has been necessary to fight for each power token, it has not always been easy to reach 15 of them (sometimes impossible). I enjoyed them a lot, thinking 3 turns ahead and facing really good players.

THE DECK

The idea was to play a deck with a lot of gold, a lot of draw and many renowns. 3 copies of all the good stuff and the Rains Agenda as a toolbox to deal with different situations. Being a deck with so many copies and so much draw, it is a very stable deck that resists quite well one and up to 2 resets, sometimes even 3.

Why would he swap events for Queen of Thorns, i mean its not like he has a lot of different events :D She can have a deck built around her, but for renown rush I agree she is solid just for insight, Lady and intrigue icon. Powerful deck. I expected this kind of deck would win Worlds as well. I personally don't see how crossing Targ can compete with this.

I'm also building a rushy tyrell rains and im very intrigued by the different approaches you took. i decided on much more military, str boosting with 3x garlan, 2x pavilion and attachments. My questions are:

1) with only 15 mil characters, have you ever been in situation where you cannot establish a board because you arent drawing enough mil?

@jeermasterThank you man, thoughest matches ever, I still wake up at night screaming "Varys", "Viper Eyes" or "Painted Table" :).

@movacIt is not a Mace deck but he can remove attachments (I did it on a Marriage Pact on Randyll), speed up the game with 3 power tokens and he is a Lord to search with Margaery. Of course the 5 STR in Intrigue helps Rains. He is also a bait for Valar and negative attachments.

@IonGrey1) I never felt short on Military, the deck draws a lot and with the STR boosts you can push through. If you can't, it is not a problem as the deck do not care too much about this kind of challenge. Moreover, opponents do not attack you in Mil if you have Margaery out. 2) I could not deal with them, just live with them. They were a problem, of course, specially in the semifinal and the final (two straight HJ that ruined my first turn in the final). The deck concentrates in one thing, winning intrigue and power challenges, renown and draw, including other things would dilute it.

I playtested a lot the same archetype with the new cards (Mace in x3 instead of Renly) and thus the according choices (Hightower, FB, HJ).
As a consequence, I was aware of the shortage of this strategy and reading your list I understand why your build Stahleck.
I am still curious to know if you playtested the new stuff and go to the Level of reasoning that old stuff was better in this metagame.

The only thing I don't get with your lsit is why FSoW>Valar, and why paxterx2, Littlefingerx2 while not including Begging Brothers.

@BenjiI haven't playtested the new stuff much but I don't want to have all the eggs in the same basket (Mace). Moreover, I feared the new Plot (Nothing Burns...) which can be devastating for The Hightower.

Why First Snow over Valar? I couldn't include Valar with so many resets around because my deck can only endure 2 resets, maximum 3 and I did'nt want to add another one. If the game comes to a Battle of Characters, few decks can compete in raw power with this one.

In the other hand, FSOW really wrecks some decks which are very difficult matchups (Martell and NW).

Paxter and Littlefinger are duped because of the economy, draw and to resist the multiple resets (Varys). In fact, I can say that Paxter was my MVP, no one cares about him and he is so good enabling me to play "suprise" STR boosts.

With the new stuff, Mace is not putting all the eggs in the same basket, it's a part of your strategy, the problem is that it has too many negative indirect consequences...
(Locations slots = weakness to GJ, Castamere,Need to play HJ, less STR boosts for Randyll, no Renly + Brienne combo).
That's why I agree with your vision of playing it x1, he is more a finisher than anything else...

I understand that FSoW is not a "reset" now, ok ! (Valar was not very succesful for me, since he does not allow to reverse games that frequently).

I am surprised that Paxter is so good. I played him only when Tyrell started to be good, I expected my opponents to care about him after that. But it seems that the reflex of counting coins is strongly implemented in our biologically limited brains !

Congrats again, putting Garlan x2 show how well you understand the STR boosts for Randyll in this archetype.

@Kobal the matches that were recorded are not yet online. For this deck we recorded the full way from Top 16 to Finals. Links will be posted at the Stahleck Facebook page and the English Agot Facebook group.

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